Many vehicles are designed to transport freight, goods, merchandise, personal property, and other such cargo. Often, such vehicles may be arranged to tow a trailer by attaching the trailer to the towing vehicle, such as through the use of a hitch assembly. The towing industry has developed a number of methods and apparatuses for securing or engaging the towed vehicle or trailer to the towing vehicle, such as a truck.
There are many different types of trailer hitches in the art that may be attached to the towing vehicle in a variety of ways, depending on the type of hitch. Some of the most common types of hitches include gooseneck, fifth wheel, rear mount, and the like. Typically, trailers may be connected to the towing vehicle by way of a hitch assembly including a ball hitch or member secured to the towing vehicle and a ball socket coupling mechanism on the towed vehicle or trailer that mounts over the ball and thereby allows for the trailer to pivot behind the towing vehicle.
Numerous types of hitch balls have been developed to be attached to the bumper or other rear portion of a towing vehicle. The trailer or towed vehicle may be equipped with a coupler mechanism to be attached to the towing vehicle by placing the coupler mechanism over the hitch ball and securing the coupler to the hitch ball. Similar apparatuses using hitch receivers attached to the rear of the towing vehicle and drawbars may be used to secure trailers to towing vehicles.
Some trailers may be designed to carry heavy loads. Connecting such a trailer to a ball hitch on a bumper of a towing vehicle, however, may be impractical. When a trailer load is heavy as compared to the weight of the towing vehicle, applying the trailer load over or in close proximity to the rear axle of the towing vehicle may create a more stable towing condition. In addition, such an arrangement may put much of the force of the trailer load onto structural members of the towing vehicle, such as the frame, whereby the hitch ball may be located in the truck bed.
There are generally two arrangements for securing a trailer to the bed of a towing vehicle—a fifth wheel hitch and a gooseneck ball. A gooseneck hitch may be utilized with a towed vehicle having a gooseneck coupler that may generally be coupled to a gooseneck ball that may be located in the bed of the towing vehicle. The gooseneck ball may typically be permanently secured to the frame or bed of the towing vehicle. A fifth wheel hitch is utilized with towed vehicles having a king pin, which may be part of a pin box attached to the towed vehicle. The fifth wheel hitch may generally be positioned in a bed of a truck and secured either to the bed or directly to the frame of the truck. Fifth wheel hitches may generally be attached to the bed or frame in a more permanent manner, whereby tools may generally be required to remove fasteners and other connectors to install or uninstall a fifth wheel hitch to the bed of a towing vehicle. In this towing system, the king pin may couple with the fifth wheel hitch.
The gooseneck coupler to gooseneck ball connection may allow for more relative movement between the towing vehicle and the towed vehicle as the towing vehicle makes turns, traverses uneven or rough terrain, and passes along inclining and declining roadways. The gooseneck ball member may be removed or lowered to a stowed position below the bed to ensure that the use of the bed is not substantially hindered by the presence of the gooseneck ball.
The gooseneck coupler typically may include a manually operated clamping arrangement that may retain the gooseneck ball member in the socket and thus the towed vehicle to the towing vehicle. Generally, the gooseneck coupler may be secured to the tongue of the towed vehicle, usually a forward extension of the frame. Due to ease of hookup, recreational vehicles or travel trailers (RV) may typically utilize a king pin and fifth wheel hitch to couple to a towing vehicle while relatively less expensive towed vehicles, such as a horse or livestock trailer, typically utilizes a gooseneck coupler. A consequence is that an owner or user of a variety of towed vehicles may have to have multiple towing vehicles (one with a fifth wheel hitch and one with a gooseneck hitch) or swap out the fifth wheel hitch and the gooseneck hitch when it is desired to tow a differently configured towed vehicle. The swapping of a fifth wheel hitch into and out of a towing vehicle, however, may be very cumbersome and time consuming and may not be readily available.
In an attempt to allow a typically fifth wheel hitch towed vehicle, such as an RV to be towed with a gooseneck hitch, the trailer industry has addressed this situation by utilizing a pin box adaptor or extension which is placed on the king pin box. The adaptor may permit the king pin box to be hooked up to or engaged with a gooseneck ball. These adaptors, however, typically cause additional stress on the king pin box, the mounting structure and ultimately on the towed vehicle itself Additionally, the use of the adaptor can change the geometry of the connection between the towing vehicle and the towed vehicle such that an unwanted orientation of the towed vehicle may be realized. Therefore, there is a need for an improved system.